HP OpenVMS Systems Documentation

OpenVMS System Manager's Manual

OpenVMS Management Station allows you to organize the systems you need
to manage in ways that are meaningful to you and your environment, and
allows you to manage user accounts on those systems.

You can easily manage user accounts across multiple OpenVMS systems,
depending on your needs. The systems might be some of the clusters in a
network, all of the systems on one floor of a building, a mix of
clusters and nonclustered nodes, and so forth.

You can use OpenVMS Management Station to manage OpenVMS user accounts
in a convenient, easy manner. For example, when creating an account on
multiple systems, OpenVMS Management Station can add a user
authorization file (UAF) entry, grant rights identifiers, create an
OpenVMS directory, set a disk quota, set up OpenVMS Mail
characteristics, and so forth, for each instance of the account.

You perform many system management tasks by entering DCL (DIGITAL
Command Language) commands. For example, enter the DCL command MOUNT to
make disks and tapes available to the system. Most of the DCL commands
used by system managers require special privileges (such as OPER
privilege).

The general format of a DCL command is as follows:

command-name[/qualifier[,...]] [parameter[,...]] [/qualifier[,...]]

Because a command can be continued on more than one line, the term
command string is used to define the entire command. A
command string is the complete specification of a command, including
the command name, command qualifiers, parameters, and parameter
qualifiers.

For complete descriptions of each DCL command, refer to online DCL help
or the OpenVMS DCL Dictionary. If you are not familiar with DCL command syntax,
refer to the OpenVMS User's Manual.

When you enter commands in DCL or in utilities, the system returns
messages to help you understand the result of each command.
System messages can indicate the following information:

Successful completion of a command

Information about the effect of the command

Warning about the effect of the command

Failure to successfully complete the command

At times, you might need to interpret a system message, for example, to
find out how to recover from a warning or failure. The Help Message
utility allows you and system users to quickly access online
descriptions of system messages from the DCL prompt.

For more information about the Help Message utility, refer to the
OpenVMS System Messages: Companion Guide for Help Message Users. In addition, the OpenVMS System Messages and Recovery Procedures Reference Manual provides detailed
descriptions of system messages.

You can use command procedures to efficiently perform routine tasks. A
command procedure is a file containing DCL commands
and, optionally, data used by those DCL commands. When you execute a
command procedure, the system reads the file and executes the commands
it contains. This eliminates the need for you to enter each command
interactively. You can create command procedures to automate some of
the routine system management tasks specific to your site.

A simple command procedure can contain a sequence of commands that you
use frequently. For example, you could include the following commands
in a command procedure called GO_WORK.COM:

$ SET DEFAULT [PERRY.WORK]
$ DIRECTORY
$ EXIT

When you execute this command procedure with the command @GO_WORK, you
set your default directory to [PERRY.WORK] and display a list of files
in that directory.

With complex command procedures, you can use DCL instead of a
high-level programming language. For more information about creating
command procedures, refer to the OpenVMS User's Manual.

You can execute command procedures in batch mode by
submitting the procedure to a batch queue. When resources are
available, the system creates a batch process to execute the commands
in the procedure. Usually, processes running in batch mode execute at a
lower process priority to avoid competing with interactive users for
system resources.

You might execute a command procedure in batch mode for the following
reasons:

To automate a task

To process work at a lower scheduling priority, so as not to
compete with interactive users for system resources

To perform a task during off hours, such as at night or on weekends

To allow an operation to continue without having a terminal logged
in, thereby increasing the security of the system

A batch-oriented command procedure can include a command to resubmit
itself to a batch queue, thereby repetitively performing the task with
no user intervention. For example, you might create a batch-oriented
command procedure to run the Analyze/Disk_Structure utility
(ANALYZE/DISK_STRUCTURE) to report disk errors. If you include a
command to resubmit the procedure to a batch queue, the procedure will
automatically execute when scheduled, unless errors cause the procedure
to fail. The following example is a simple command procedure, named
SYSTEM-DAILY.COM:

The system uses this command procedure to automatically perform certain
tasks that are required to start up an OpenVMS system. This procedure
is executed when the system boots.
Do not modify this command procedure.

SYS$STARTUP:SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM

STARTUP.COM executes this procedure when the system boots. Add commands
to this procedure to perform site-specific tasks each time the system
boots.

SYS$SYSTEM:SHUTDOWN.COM

Use to shut down the system in an orderly fashion.

SYS$UPDATE:AUTOGEN.COM

Use to automatically set system parameters and page, swap, and dump
file sizes to values appropriate for the system configuration and work
load.

With the operating system, Compaq supplies a number of system
management utilities to help perform system management tasks.
A system management utility is a program that performs a set of related
operations. For example, the Mount utility (MOUNT) makes disks and
tapes available to the system, and the Backup utility (BACKUP) saves
and restores files.

Most system management utilities require special privileges. Generally,
you run these utilities from the SYSTEM account, which has all
privileges by default. Section 2.2 describes logging in to the SYSTEM
account.

You invoke some utilities using the following command format:

RUN SYS$SYSTEM:utility_name

To invoke other utilities, such as MOUNT and ANALYZE/DISK_STRUCTURE,
enter a DCL command. For example:

$ ANALYZE/DISK_STRUCTURE

Table 2-2 lists the system management utilities and their purposes.
This manual describes how to use most of these utilities. For detailed
information about utility commands and qualifiers, refer to the
OpenVMS System Management Utilities Reference Manual.

To help you perform basic system management tasks, Compaq provides a
command procedure named SYS$EXAMPLES:MGRMENU.COM. This procedure
displays a menu that you can use to perform the following tasks:

Add a user account

Build a standalone BACKUP kit

Shut down your system

You can use this command procedure as is, or modify it to serve your
own site-specific needs. If you modify this procedure, Compaq
recommends you first copy the procedure to another directory (for
example, SYS$MANAGER), so that an original version of MGRMENU.COM is
always available in the SYS$EXAMPLES directory.

To use system management utilities and perform system management
functions, log in to the system manager's account (SYSTEM).

Caution

Compaq recommends that you change the password for the SYSTEM account
frequently to maintain system security. Because the SYSTEM account has
full privileges by default, exercise caution when using it.

If your site has strong security requirements, Compaq recommends that
you disable all but batch use of the SYSTEM account and set up separate
privileged accounts for individuals who must perform privileged
activities on the system. This will allow you to more closely account
for privileged activity on the system.

At the Password prompt, enter the password that you chose for the
SYSTEM account when you installed or upgraded the operating system, or
the current password if you changed it since then.

The system displays a welcome message on the console terminal. If
you have logged in previously, the system also prints the time of your
last login. When the dollar sign ($) prompt appears, login is complete
and you can enter commands.

SYSMAN centralizes system management, so that you, as system manager,
can manage nodes or clusters from one location. Rather than logging in
to individual nodes and repeating a set of management tasks, SYSMAN
enables you to define your management environment to be a particular
node, a group of nodes, or an OpenVMS Cluster environment. With a
management environment defined, you can perform traditional system
management tasks from your local node; SYSMAN executes these tasks on
all nodes in the target environment.

A separate account with no more than 125 rights, or enough
identifiers removed from the current account so the total number of
rights falls within the appropriate range. The rights limitation of
125 includes a minimum of three identifiers that are granted during
login when the process rights list is created:

A UIC identifier

A system identifier

At least one environmental identifier, depending upon the
environment in which the process is operating

SYSMAN uses many of the same software tools that you traditionally use
to manage a system. It can process most DCL commands, such as MOUNT and
INITIALIZE. It can also execute many system management utilities and
command procedures, such as AUTHORIZE and AUTOGEN.

SYSMAN also includes its own commands that let you perform the
following tasks: